DAY 12 - A DAY OUT TO PRIMOSTEN, SIBENIK AND KRKA NATIONAL PARK

We had a very interesting day out using an advertised tour with our own guide.  There were just the two of us and a South African girl who was visiting from Barcelona.  The guide spoke very good English and he was excellent, pleasant, knowledgeable and very good value for money,  It was a nine hour tour and we had the full nine hours and he did more than the tour information suggested.

Our first stop along the coast to the North of Split was Primosten.  This was a little island connected to the mainland with a drawbridge this was replaced by a causeway.  St. George's Church sits at the top of the hill in the centre of the island.

To view a larger photo, left click on the image once or touch on a tablet.  To return to the Blog click or touch off the image.


Primosten

A charming statue of man and cat on the waterfront with a tourist submarine looking for customers

Another waterfront statue

We had time to walk to the top of the island and the 14th century church up winding alleys lined with green-shuttered stone houses.

Inside St.George's Church

The splendid interior ceiling

The final climb to the church


The guide never pushed us, we could always take all the time we wanted, even enough time for an ice-cream.

The next stop was the town of Sibenik, further along the coast. This was a busy place, hard even to find a spot to drop us off on the waterfront.  Again he gave us plenty of time to wander round and have lunch.


St. James' Cathedral
The cathedral is made of stone quarried from four off-shore islands and is all stone, no wood or brick supports.  Building started in 1431 and it was finally completed in 1536.

Sculpture of Juraj Damatinac, the constructor of the Cathedral, in front of the main entrance





The main altar
Lunch is served

The main attraction of the day was to be Krka National Park, inland from Sibenik, which as a series of waterfalls.  This is a very popular place to visit and it was certainly extremely busy on the day we went.  The advantage of a guide is that they can cut corners and get you to the "front of the line".  The Park is intended primarily for scientific, cultural, educational, recreational, and tourism activities. It is the seventh national park in Croatia and was proclaimed a national park in 1985. 

Once in the park we went along a winding road downhill to the best place to start a walk to the falls.

Waiting for a park bus to get back to the entrance

There is a boardwalk for much of the circuit around the falls.



The building on the right is a mill
which was active
One of the upper falls and the mill buildings
The hydro-electric power station
The Jaruga Hydroelectric Power Plant was the first alternating current power system in Croatia. The Jaruga is the second oldest hydroelectric power plant in the entire world, having opened in 1893 only two days after the world's first - Tesla's hydroelectric power plant on Niagara Falls. The Jaruga was constructed after Tesla's design. The Jaruga was originally designed to power the street lights in Sibenik.

The party
A turbine wheel relic
Probably the most photographed falls in the park
We left the park after many of the visitors had gone so there was less of a traffic jam on the way out.

Our guide had one more place to visit up his sleeve, an unadvertised special.  This was a tiny church on the top of a hill. 

The twelve stations of the cross in the grounds of the church
The little church on the hill near Primosten
Panoramic view of the coast line at Primosten 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
DAY 17 and 18 - LEAVING VIS FOR SPLIT AND DUBROVNIK To view a larger photo, left click on the image once or touch on a tablet.  To return to the Blog click or touch off the image. We were up early to get the ferry back to Split.  This time we were on the Valun which had taken over the route from the Petar Hektorovic.  We were then going to catch a bus to Dubrovnik which was due to leave in the early afternoon.  All the other buses were running on time but ours was an hour late coming in from Zagreb.  The bus cut inland to get on to the West-East motorway and then cut back to the coast.  Croatia runs along the coast but there is a piece where Bosnia Herzegovina has a small section on the coast.  The bus stopped here for a break and filled up with fuel, it must be cheaper than in Croatia. The refueling stop in Bosnia Herzegovina We took a taxi from the bus station to our apartment.  This was well appointed and the owners lived in the s...
Read more
Image
DAY 15 - EXPLORING THE ISLAND OF VIS We made an early start and our guide turned out to be excellent.  We spent the whole day traveling across the island and back.  He was very knowledgeable and we learnt a lot from him about the Island and the military occupation. To view a larger photo, left click on the image once or touch on a tablet.  To return to the Blog click or touch off the image. Up the hill behind the apartment with a view back to the Town of Vis and Kut On our way out we we told about the time that Tito lived on Vis.  Josip Broz, commonly known as Tito, was a Yugoslav communist revolutionary and statesman, serving in various roles from 1943 until his death in 1980. During World War II he was the leader of the Partisans often regarded as the most effective resistance movement in occupied Europe.  As the Second World War ended and the Cold War began, Vis, then part of Yugoslavia, was transformed by leader Tito into a military ...
Read more
Image
DAY 19, DAY 20 and DAY 21- LAST FULL DAY IN DUBROVNIK To view a larger photo, left click on the image once or touch on a tablet.  To return to the Blog click or touch off the image. On our last full day in Dubrovnik we used our Dubrovnik Card to take a bus ride to the nearby town of Cavtat.  This is a favourite destination of many tourists and we found a group from the cruise ship The Black Watch.  The Black Watch in the distance in Dubrovnik Cavtat has two harbours connected by a peninsular, we walked from one to the other around the coast.   The Western Bay with the Church of St Nicholas in the background A panorama view of the Western Bay We went into the Church of St. Nicholas on our walk around the peninsular. The church was built way back in the 15th century. The Main Altar A secondary Altar There was a second church on the walk - the Church and Monastery of the Lady of the Snow. The legend...
Read more